


i see you, beauty

by fiveaces



Category: Peaky Blinders (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-12
Updated: 2019-04-12
Packaged: 2020-01-12 05:12:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,199
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18439733
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fiveaces/pseuds/fiveaces
Summary: When Ada met Jay, she was at a crossroads in her journey of figuring out exactly what she wanted, and Jay had a camera. That’s all it took to start the whole thing, really.





	i see you, beauty

**Author's Note:**

  * For [twistedrunes](https://archiveofourown.org/users/twistedrunes/gifts).



> For the lovely twistedrunes who asked for: Ada Shelby/Original Female Characters — happy for Ada x reader too, whichever you prefer. Just something happy.
> 
> Do not want: incest, rape/non-con or homophobia
> 
> I had so much fun writing this prompt! I hope you like it! :)

“I’m going away,” Ada said to the others. “I’m going away next week.”

They all stare at her, paused in their motions like a tableau. “Where to?” Polly asked.

“The only place I know,” Ada said, setting down her plate and looking at the faces around her. She doesn’t want to see them right now, not at this point in her life. There’s too much weightage here: in Birmingham, in England. “Which is away from here."

“What?” John sounded faint, like he couldn’t quite believe what he was hearing. “You’re leaving?”

“Leaving means it’s permanent. I’m only going away.”

“For how long?” Tommy asked, because this was another matter her family had to pry into. This is why she needs all of this. Her suitcase and duffel are already packed, her ticket across the Channel tucked away in the smallest pocket of her beaten up Jansport. She’s got money in the bank, her passport’s renewed. She’s been preparing for this for over a year.

“Don’t know.” Ada gave a half-hearted shrug. “Just somewhere.”

_____

This was five months ago.

_____

Ada doesn’t know where she is, except that the ground beneath her feet is steady and that’s the best she can get, at the moment. She’s caught in hinterland, in this neck of the woods, standing in a little clearing and wondering what the fuck to do next.

She picks a direction and walks.

This—this is the easy part. Walking is an involuntary action when one is in a state such as this, which means she isn’t dead or dying or petrified of fear. But she will be, soon, if she doesn’t move. So she walks and walks and walks and walks until her feet ache and she begins to sway from side to side, not following any direction except her own.

She manages to haul herself onto the ground quite by accident: one moment she’s vertical, the next she’s sprawled on her front with a squawk. Ada blinks sweat out of her eyes and lies there, heaving, her foot caught in a rotting old branch. The ground is damp and mossy, little bits of twig underhand, digging themselves into her palms and under-nails. She stares at the backs of her hands, fingers curled into the wet-dirt of the mulch underneath. Overhead, a leaf flutters down. Passing by off to the side, a bee bumbles its way merrily to a patch of flowers soaking in the sunlight that dapples from the trees, warm and yellow.

Ada doesn’t know for how long she lies there, staring at a fixated point somewhere in the distance, and watching the slow passage of time in the woods. When nothing but a squirrel passes by after a good chunk of time, she decides that enough is enough, and turns on her back to stare up at the canopy of leaves above instead. The sun is warm, shining right at her face. Ada squints but doesn’t turn away from it, she likes the feel of it on her skin.

Eventually, Jay finds her, like she always does. “How long have you been here for?”

“Not sure,” Ada says, and keeps on lying on her back, spread out like a starfish. “I didn’t keep track.”

Leaves crunch underneath Jay’s boots when she gets closer to Ada, squatting down beside her head, leaning over and blocking the sun. Her hair is tied back in the customary braid—yellow ribbon and all—which falls over Ada’s face and tickles the bridge of her nose. The rest of Jay is dark, the sun a backlight. The baby hairs that frizz up around her head glow golden-brown. Ada notes all of this through her narrowed vision and says, “I like this view.” 

Jay gives her a funny look. “What’re you talking about?”

“Nothing,” says Ada. “Lie down with me?”

Jay gives her another funny look, and shakes her head. Her braid swings from Ada’s nose to her cheek. “I’m fine, thanks.”

“Suit yourself,” Ada answers. She brings her hands to rest on top of her stomach, folded on top of one another. “It’s very comfortable down here.”

“I can imagine,” Jay snorts, and continues to crouch by Ada’s head. She peers up at the hidden sky, the long line of her neck right there. Ada has the sudden urge to sit up and bite it, worry the skin with her teeth until a dark bruise forms in the shape of her mouth. “Look’s like it’s going to rain.”

“No way.” Ada shifts so she can blink up at the trees. “It can’t rain, it’s too bright outside.”

“Any day can be rainy weather if it wants to be,” Jay replies, and then: “Fuck, my feet are killing me—hey, lend me your jacket.”

Ada does, sitting up and shrugging it off, handing it over to Jay. She watches curiously when Jay ties it around her waist, and then scowls when she sits down on the ground, the jacket a barrier between the seat of her pants and the moisture soaked in the soil. “Wow, thanks.”

“No problem,” Jays grins, leaning back so her hands rest on the ground. Ada watches the way the lines of her biceps tense; she wants to bite those, too. “Who says chivalry is dead? You saved my ass from getting wet.”

“Fuck you.”

“You’ve already done it this morning,” Jay says, easy-going. Ada stares at her incredulously. “I wouldn’t be against it, mind you, but I’d rather prefer not do it here. Some poor sod’s going to stumble by and have a heart attack.”

“How’d you find me anyways?” Ada asks instead of being egged on further, because she needs to know. She’d gone running pell-mell into the woods with no semblance of anything but to get away from her phone that had Tommy’s face and number buzzing insistently at her. Ada had taken one good look at her screen before she was darting away, bag long forgotten, and she realises that now it’s right next to her. Jay had brought it along when she’d come looking. “You don’t have some tracker on me or stuff like that?” she jokes.

Jay sends her a sly look. “I have my ways.”

There’s a moment’s silence before she speaks again. “Actually, I’m not sure. I just followed instinct.” Here, Jay pauses. “Well, that, and you dropped your Alice band on the way.”

She hands it over with little flourish, and then slouches over, resting her elbows on top of her knees, looking out into the distance. From Ada’s angle, she can see the sharp lines of Jay’s jaw, and the day-old hickey right under the bolt of it. Jay’s braid hangs over her shoulder now, she always likes to put it over her shoulder.

They stay there for a while, in the uneasy silence of the woods. It’s peaceful to the point of being stifling, Ada isn’t used to quiet: the silence of the space around her is enormous, making her ears ring with it. Even Jay’s breathing is calm and steady, blending in with the cool breeze that passes by. It makes Ada ache in all the places she doesn’t recognise—she wants to get up from where she’s lying like a limp rag, pick up Jay and her bag and just run away someplace, anyplace. What she wants is something she can’t have.

As if sensing her misery, Jay breathes out a sigh that carries the wind with it. A hard lump settles in Ada’s throat, right between her collarbones, pulsing to the staccato rhythm of her heartbeat. She can’t swallow properly without choking up.

“Why’d you come looking?” Ada asks, voice small, clenching her hands into fists. Her nails dig into the meat of her palms and leave little indents in their wake. She wants to keep on digging in until blood wells up in the shape of crescent moons. “You didn’t have to follow.”

Jay looks over at her like she’s gone mad, her mouth turned down into a frown. A little line forms there, right between her eyebrows. “Why do you think? Ada, Christ, we’re buddies, yeah?”

Buddies. Ada doesn’t like that word.

“Don’t give me that face.” Jay wrinkles her nose, twisting around so she’s looking at Ada again. “You know how I hate that face.”

“I really don’t,” Ada responds, because it’s the truth. They’ve only known each other for four months and one week, and have been fucking throughout the entire duration except that first night. What little Ada knows about Jay is what she likes in bed; most of everything else is shrouded in mystery and stolen glances that speak about things both of them are hesitant to explore.

“Oh,” Jay says. She goes quiet for a while, deep in thought. “Well, now you do.”

Ada blinks at her, unsure of what to say. Jay looks back with something in her eyes that makes Ada want to push her down on the ground, regardless of the wetness, and kiss her stupid. It’s an urge she’s tentative to follow through outside of the confines of a bed, because this is new and Jay isn’t a stranger by definition, but she feels like one, and Ada shouldn’t be feeling the things she feels for a woman who has a habit of looking at her in a way that makes her stomach twist in knots.

She turns back to stare up at the canopy of leaves overhead. Jay keeps on sitting beside her, silent and steady.

____

Eventually, they pick their way back to the village in silence, side by side. Ada keeps on glancing at Jay through her peripheral vision, cataloguing her every move: the way her face shifts when an insect buzzes by, how she hops around from spot to spot instead of walking normally, what her shoes look like caked in mud from a puddle she’d accidentally stepped into, and the sound of her disgust after. Ada likes this, to look at the simple everyday moments and do the act of committing it all to memory.

“Hey,” Jay says after some time when they’re skirting the border of the woods and the surrounding fields of the village, the trees getting sparser and smaller. “Do you mind telling me why you suddenly upped and bolted?”

Ada looks down at her feet, shouldering her Jansport higher up her back, fingers clenched tight around the worn straps. Her head feels dizzy. She’s cold and sweaty and the tag of her pants keeps on prickling on the small of her back. She has the sudden urge to throw up what little she ate that morning. “I—I don’t want to talk about it.”

“You don’t have to,” Jay replies, voice sounding strange. Ada looks up to see her sheepish. “But, just so you know, I picked up the phone.”

Ada stares at her, horrified.

“I’m sorry!” Jay hastily cries, throwing her hands up in the air. They’ve both stopped, right at the edge of the woodlands. She winces, looking decidedly anxious. “It just kept on ringing and ringing and I got annoyed.”

Frowning, Ada bites her bottom lip and thinks about what to do next. “What did you say?” she finally asks.

Jay’s eyes are round and earnest. “Nothing! I just heard a man say your name and then I hung up. It was weird, he was silent for a while before.”

“Oh,” Ada responds. She ventures further, taking a couple of steps up ahead and then stopping. “He didn’t say anything else?”

Jay shakes her head. Ada frowns some more. “Okay then. No worries. It was just my brother.”

“Oh,” Jay says. “I didn’t know you had a brother.”

“More than one.” Ada grows bitter again. “And you wouldn’t know, would you? We’ve only just met.”

With that, she leaves Jay behind, and trudges her way back to the hostel, alone.

____

When Ada met Jay, she was at a crossroads in her journey of figuring out exactly what she wanted, and Jay had a camera. That’s all it took to start the whole thing, really.

It was inevitable, in the grand scheme of things. Ada hadn’t realised it at the time, too taken aback by this woman who’d sat across from her in a Parisian street café and asked her if she minded getting her picture taken.

“It’s for a project I’m doing,” Jay, who had just introduced herself in a rush, informed her. “About people.”

Ada had stared at her, coffee cup poised mid-air, Jay still looking at her with that earnest expression Ada has now come to appreciate in the ways that count. “You have to consent,” Jay had said politely. “Otherwise I won’t do it.”

“Okay,” Ada had blurted all at once. She hadn’t gone pink then, that was from the sun, but she had ducked her head and put down her cup. Later, she’d blame this sudden bout of shyness on her new surroundings, and the new way of life she was trying to find and fall into. Paris was the first stop of her trip only because she’d been there before. It was pretty, sure, but it was the big city—just like London, just like Birmingham. In the end, though, it all boiled down to the woman sitting across from her, Jay, who she’d just met. “I’ll do it.”

Jay beamed. “Great!” And then took up her camera, pointed it right at Ada and clicked the button.

“Oh,” Ada breathed after. “You don’t want me to pose or anything.”

“We’ll figure it out,” Jay replied. She clicked another photo, this time angled down so—Ada supposes—the maps that were spread in front of her were captured too. “We’ve got the whole day after all.”

“Right.” She sounded distant in her own head, mouth on autopilot. “Okay, then.”

Jay snapped another one and then hunched over her camera, frowning down at it. “Lighting’s not right, Christ. We’ll have to head down towards—wait—what’s your name?”

Ada blinked at her, took out her hand for a shake. “Ada.” She hesitated about adding more to it, but Jay didn’t need to know what her last name was. This was, after all, a fresh start.

“Nice to meet you, Ada,” Jay grinned, and shook the proffered hand. Her hand was warm, slightly sweaty. She had calluses on her fingertips, not too many, but enough to make Ada wonder where they came from. “I’m Jay.”

“I know that,” Ada had said. “You’ve already introduced yourself.”

“Sure.” Jay smiled serenely. “I suppose you’re right.”

_____

Of course, that’s not how it really happened.

Nothing Ada remembers of the past couple of months with Jay happened the way they were meant to. Jay hadn’t come stumbling up to her, asking for a picture. She hadn’t smiled in that way of hers and held Ada’s hand and kissed her right at the end of the day, dropping her off at her hotel. She hadn’t fallen into bed with her and fucked her senseless, till Ada was dumb with it—All of this: the kissing and the fucking and the God knows what else, did not happen because of a chance encounter in a little street café in the more bohemian parts of Paris.

It happened, as to be expected of the life Ada had lived up till that point, because of a train that went from Paris to a village that she had picked off of an old map that dated back to the ‘70s with her eyes closed.

Jay was on the seat across from her, slouched in a yellow hoodie, headphones on and humming a tune Ada could recall with little certainty. Ada couldn’t help stealing glances at her, because she was just _there_ , and Ada was bored and maybe a little bit interested. Jay looked new, fresh and clean despite her bedraggled appearance. Ada needed that newness more than she needed anything in her life at that moment.

When the train had stopped by a station, Jay had glanced up, met Ada’s gaze, and smiled. Her eyes crinkled in the corners and she had dimples around her mouth. “Hey,” she said.

“Hey,” Ada replied. She felt monotonous at that moment—a palimpsest of her past, present and future meshed into a misshapen shape of Ada-who-never-happened. She felt like everything and nothing. She felt so much she didn’t know how to feel.

Jay kept on smiling and introduced herself. Ada replied in kind, and the rest was history.

_____

She is curled up in the small bed she shares with Jay at their current hostel, staring at her call log and wondering whether she should call home. 

Jay is nowhere to be found. She hasn’t followed Ada again and it’s been a couple of hours since the woods. Ada wonders if she’s alright, and then berates herself for wondering. Of course Jay is alright, she’s a grown woman.

When the sun starts to properly set, Ada’s spontaneous refuge in the woods finally catches up to her. She struggles to stay up, lazily drifting off before snapping herself wide awake, a deer caught in headlights, her head ebbing and flowing with exhaustion.

Just as she’s decided that Jay’s not coming back any time soon, and she might as well go to bed, the floorboards outside their room creaks and the door opens. Jay’s silhouette materialises at the doorway, dark and brooding.

“You’re here,” Ada says, voice smaller than she wants it to be. Jay doesn’t reply, instead walking further into the gentle light of the lamp on their bedside, toeing off her boots.

“Yes,” she finally says, and her tone isn’t clipped or angry as Ada had expected. It’s something different, something Ada does not recognise, even when she rifles through her vast collection of memories. Jay’s voice is soft and worn, like it gets when she’s tired or fucked out or both. When she stops by her side of the bed, Ada notices the change.

“You cut your hair,” she says bluntly. Jay looks at her with shiny eyes, hands laid flat against her sides. Her plait is long gone, replaced with a boyish cut that looks sweet on her. Ada hadn’t realised Jay had curls until now.

“Yes,” Jay repeats. Her eyes flit around the room. “I cut my hair.”

 

“Why?” Ada asks, because she has to know. Jay looks at her— _really_ looks, serious and stoic. Ada tries hard not to curl up under the scrutiny.

 

“Why not?” Jay replies icily. “It’s not like you care.”

Ada opens her mouth to protest and then shuts up. Of course, how could she forget; the fucking woods.

Jay’s still staring at her, daring her to say anything else. She’s glowing in the darkened room, eyes flashing and skin turned molten. Ada imagines if she were to reach out and touch her, she’d be scalding hot. Her hair, which is the centre point of it, accentuates the roundness of her face. Jay may be all sharp angles and harsh lines when afar or off to the side, but upfront and close she’s only soft curves and forgiving weight. Ada knows that if she were to bury her nose in Jay’s hair, she’d smell like honeyed milk, like the rest of her.

All of a sudden, Ada isn’t so sleepy anymore. She aches to reach out and touch Jay, follow the path of where her waist tapers and slopes off to wide hips, and the curve down from there to the inside of her knee. Ada wants to bury herself in her. Otherwise, she wouldn’t know any other place. If things are to go badly just because of her own inability to speak about her family to a woman she’s becoming _committed_ to, Ada’s not sure what she’ll do. She’s become too familiar with Jay, letting her go right now would ruin her in ways she’d rather not ruin.

“I’m sorry,” she sighs instead. She focuses in on Jay’s waist, where the shirt dips and then expands with the curve of it. “I—I don’t know what came over me.”

Silence. Ada peers up through her lashes to see Jay biting her bottom lip with her teeth.

Finally, she speaks. “Why are you sorry?” she asks.

Ada gapes at her. “What?”

“I said,” Jay repeats calmly. “Why are you sorry?”

“You’ve got to be kidding me.”

Ada grits her teeth. “I’m sorry, okay. I’m sorry for getting mad at you for picking up my phone because I wouldn’t despite the invasion of pri—“

“That isn’t an apology,” Jay interrupts her, arms crossed. “And it wasn’t an invasion of privacy if you’ve done it to me a couple of times also.”

“That’s no—.” Ada tenses up, closes her eyes and breathes loudly through her nose. In and out, in and out. All the while, Jay stands there, cool façade and still looking adorable. Ada hates her for it.“Fine. Look, I’m sorry for what happened in the woods after, when we were walking. I just, God, I just got upset but it wasn’t because of you.”

Ada pauses, hesitant to share anymore. Jay’s arms drop to her sides again, and her face has softened to something more approachable, something Ada is desperate for.

“And I—,” Ada cuts off. “It was my brother. Tommy. I don’t know why he called, and frankly, I don’t want to know the reason either. I just got panicked, everything from before came rushing back. Because, like, you, yeah? Being with you these past couple of weeks has been, I don’t know how to say it, but it’s been something that I hadn’t realised I’ve been missing in my life until it came. And I know that we haven’t even known each other for too long, barely told a thing about ourselves because otherwise we wouldn’t be here right now. But, I don’t know. Being with you and going around Europe, of all the landmasses we had to traverse, has been unforgettable. I don’t—I don’t want to lose it, and I felt like Tommy calling at that moment and me picking up would just tear it all down."

Ada stops. She doesn’t know what else to say. She feels exhausted, ready to cry. The pressure behind her eyes increases, and she presses the heels of her palms against her thighs.

“I’m sorry,” she says, broken.

Silence. And then the mattress dips and she’s being pulled into Jay’s arms, warm and safe, hugged within an inch of her life. 

“ _Baby_ ,” is all Jay breathes, soft and reverent and aching. Ada breaks down in the circle of her arms; she’s never felt more free.

______

She wakes up the next morning with Jay’s arm slung across her waist, the long line of her pressed against her back.

Ada blinks the sleep out of her eyes, head cloudy from last night’s events. She remembers the crying and the hugging and not much else. Mostly, she remembers Jay, and how she’d kept Ada close to her the entire time, making her drink water and eat something and telling her that everything was going to be alright. Whether Ada believes it or not, she’s not sure—but it’s been years since someone’s just held her close and told her that things are going to be fine. It makes her feel whole in a way. She doesn’t know.

From behind her, Jay snuffles into the nape of her neck, stirring the hairs there. Her body is a warm, solid presence, making Ada tingle all over. It’s early light, grey streaked across the walls and the floor, the window right next to her side of the bed slowly glowing brighter. _Her side of the bed—_ she hasn’t used that sentence in a long time.

She twists around, legs tangling up in the sheets and making Jay let out a noise, lips parted just slightly. She’s still sleeping, dreaming with the way her eyes move beneath her eyelids. Ada traces the strong line of her nose, the curve of a cheekbone and the feathery lashes that rest on top of her cheeks. She’s gorgeous, everything Ada’s ever dreamed up off, and she’s _here_ , with _her:_ Ada Shelby.

Jay makes another sound in her sleep, sending Ada’s heart into a frenzy. She wants to kiss Jay right now. She wants to ruffle that haircut of hers and kiss her all over and leave bruises the shape of her mouth and fingers. Ada wants to do so many things with Jay besides that. She wants to go on picnics in the parks and feed ducks, she wants to go to dinners and movies. She wants late night dancing and grocery runs. She wants the whole, clichéd package, Valentine's Day celebrations included. She’ll take anything, everything. She wants the feeling of being important to someone, not their whole world, but close to it. Really, if you take all those wants and wrap them up in a neat little package, it cumulates to everything she wants with Jay. She just wants Jay.

It’s been a long time coming, or maybe it hasn’t. Ada just lies there and takes it all in, Jay breathing softly next to her.


End file.
